2010 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

October 07, 2010

Occasionally, the powers-that-be at One Edmunds Tower bring me, their long-suffering Senior Editor, Detroit, out of my mole-hole and into the brilliant sun of Santa Monica, California. This is one such occasion.

During my stay the kind man that sits at Mike Schmidt's desk saw fit to toss me the keys to the big, black bruiser, the SVT Raptor. Now, I'm sure we've mentioned to you before that this vehicle is, er, big boned for use in the utopia that is Santa Monica. It won't even fit in our parking garage, or at least not on the floor that we park most of the fleet.

So if I didn't already feel out-sized by Southern California standards, I now had a vehicle that was so wholly inconsistent with its surroundings that it was, freakin' fabulous. The above picture is taken in the underground garage of my hotel, a place I was warned could never accommodate such an oafish thing. I apologize for the awful cell-phone digital sketch above but there was no room in the Raptor for a real camera. Save for the whip antenna that did indeed put a whippin' on those low-hanging ducts, the Raptor did no damage to to the garage and only minimal damage to my atrophied arm muscles.

That sincere idiot surely would have killed himself, the vehicle and the structure of the hotel if faced with such a challenge. But that's his problem.

Me? I loved rolling through Santa Monica streets, 6.2-liter a-burbling like a great black shark, ushered reluctantly through town by a bevy of Toyota Prius pilot fish. And it seemed only appropriate that this vehicle should be parked at fancy Fred Segal, with its gnarly tire a bit on the landscaping. I love this thing, man.